


a small thing to lose

by artesiaminor



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Azure Moon Route, Confessions, Developing Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Intimacy, Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-War, Soft Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Soft Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Tenderness, overall this is just a slow and kind fic, some soft goodness to close out the year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:48:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27920002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artesiaminor/pseuds/artesiaminor
Summary: Dimitri is so much more than the king of Faerghus, and is also so much less. He is a king, a hero, a savior, but first and foremost he is only a man. And Felix makes sure to remind him of that whenever necessary.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 3
Kudos: 36





	a small thing to lose

Felix removes the crown from Dimitri’s head with ease, but the weight of its obligations remains on Dimitri’s back.

It is a ritual, on major nights such as this one. Coronations and celebrations, nights where the responsibility is all consuming to the point where Dimitri’s mind contains little else. Felix watches as Dimitri loses his sense of self with nothing he can do publicly to put an end to it. Dimitri throws himself into being the king as much as he once threw himself into being the beast. The boar. And because there is nothing he can do under the glittering lights among all the nobles, on nights like this, Felix reminds him privately that while he is so much more than the king of Faerghus, he is also so much less: he is a king, a hero, a savior, but first and foremost he is only a man.

From underneath the veil of his blonde bangs Felix sees Dimitri’s blue eye, alight, watching as Felix puts his crown in its box. They have not spoken a word, which is not unusual but it is not usual either. Their small world is almost colorless, save his king, all donned in the deep blue of Faerghus, glittering in the little light that is offered. Dimitri, as always, draws attention in every action.

Except unlike so many others, Felix is not afraid to touch. Felix is not afraid to reveal the man beneath.

He unhinges the ornate clasp of Dimitri’s mantle and watches as the garment pools beneath them. He removes the belt laden with weapons that are too fragile for actual use, not able to handle the brute strength that ignites in Dimitri’s frame at any sign of trouble, and sets it atop the dresser. His fingers are nimble, but he does not act quickly. The shadow of the night demands a slowness that not even Felix’s brand of impatience is able to break.

Tonight Dimitri seems to have something on his mind already. Most nights like this, it takes time. It takes stripping him of all of the regalia, it takes conversation, sometimes it even takes a spar before Felix can see his Dimitri, the one he knows unlike anyone, flicker back into recognition.

It is a good sign. Dimitri was better tonight, the best he’d ever seen him since the war ended. Even though the fanfare of being king was in full swing tonight as another peace treaty is signed and celebrated, Dimitri continued to carry himself amicably. The weight of his crown no longer seemed as though it was on his neck, head tipped down, the weight of his kingdom drowning him in the estuary. In fact, he stood tall, radiant, as he addressed his people. His face went blank fewer times than usual. All of his responses still contained his characteristic color to them, his personality still shining through, even if a bit dimmed by all the pomp and circumstance. At no point did Felix look at him and want to reach for his sword.

In truth, Felix was the one who was strung out by all the chatter, not that this is unusual. So many nobles who believe themselves entitled to their opinions who have yet to learn that Felix is the wrong person to try rub elbows with. They want to be closer to the king, they mistake Felix as an opportunity.

Felix takes his role as a shield very literally. He may be close to Dimitri, but anyone who comes up to him may as well be a world away. Felix is a shield that bites.

Though Felix is never truly gentle, too callused from war, too terse from experience, he is more rigid than he intends to be as he divests Dimitri of his royal pageantry. And it is when Dimitri stands out of his touch, fully divested except of his black undershirt and pants, does Felix realize that he came here tonight not to aid Dimitri but to help himself.

Dimitri towers above Felix, but he does not loom. His body blocks the light to the point where it only grasps at Dimitri, creating a golden thread along the line of Dimitri’s broad shoulders, Felix entirely in shadow. They stay, staring at each other unmoving, Dimitri’s bright eye — always so bright, always so piercing, too often trained on Felix — is watching in wait as Felix’s heart hammers up into his throat.

Part of him wants to dart out the door. He’s done it before. Dimitri always understands, because he is far too accommodating. Dimitri is far too accepting, always has been, when it comes to Felix.

A dream that haunts too many of Felix’s waking hours comes to mind yet again: him, driving a sword into Dimitri’s ribcage where a shield should have been up, protecting him. Usually the dream is at Gronder, but this time, in his waking moments, it is in this room, in this low light, except there is no golden thread to Dimitri at all. He is too balled up in darkness as the far-too-familiar beast for the light to reach him, even if Felix lit him on fire. But once the sword is cleared through, once Felix knows just by the feel of where the hilt presses up against his body, that it has pierced the boar’s heart, he sees Dimitri as that bright eyed boy with the apprehensive smile — except now his teeth are covered in blood, and his own hands come back red.

Felix traps the dream behind his teeth, swallowing it thick like syrup. He cannot allow it, will not let it take up any more space tonight. Dimitri, true, is before him. By all accounts he is well. He is well and whole and him, and without thinking, Felix reaches up to push Dimitri’s bangs back to see that truth unobscured.

Dimitri’s eye is clear, and the gaze is so very fond, even as his eyebrows come together. Though Felix does not smile, Dimitri smiles at him as though he is. As though he is returning a fondness. Felix supposes he is. There is no one Felix touches like this, and when Dimitri in turn touches him — and he will, because he always does — Dimitri can bask in the knowledge that he is the only one allowed to do so. Though there is little that Felix will admit to when it comes to his feelings about Dimitri, he also will not lie, and he cannot deny that most feelings he has regarding Dimitri are, at the very least, fond.

Dimitri reaches forward, his fingers dancing along Felix’s hairline and Felix stops breathing. Let’s him touch. Dimitri is gentle. Giving. Always so giving, when he is like this. When he is lucid and himself, Dimitri works softly, with a great delicacy that Felix’s knee-jerk reaction used to be to reject. To avoid. From most people, he does not like being treated gently because their touch comes with some sort of pity or misplaced empathy when Felix is _fine_ , but that is not why Felix feels his nerves alight when Dimitri is like this. Felix’s nerves come alight when Dimitri is like this because he cannot handle the whiplash of it all being a lie. A terror that grips him, that Dimitri will revert back to his way of beast, and somehow Felix’s succumbing to _this_ Dimitri will be used against him when the madness has returned. 

But this is who Dimitri wishes to be. A man of soft touches, kind words, loving eye. Dimitri does not want his madness: he wants to shake loose his ghosts, be stripped of his violence, and despite all the help its brought him, Felix knows he wishes to be sapped of his insane strength. They are useless wishes, which is why Dimitri doesn’t voice them and Felix never asks, but there are moments when Dimitri stares at his hands as though they are still covered in blood. And Felix cannot tell him that they are not. He can only say that the blood is as much a part of him as everything that makes Dimitri good. Dimitri surges onward in hopes that the feral part of him gets smaller and smaller. Unlike Edelgard and Hubert, Dimitri is trying not to let his tragedies make him into a monster. He failed once, failed terribly, but he is working not to fall again.

And that is a reason to be proud. That is the reason Felix will follow him anywhere.

That is why Felix is confident that Dimitri, in his heart of hearts, is a man of quiet kindness and tender softness. Dimitri is capable of being a feral animal, yes, but he is also capable of _this_ : The man whose scarred hands frame Felix’s face, trace his fingertips across his hairline, sweep across his cheekbone. To be the man who whispers sweet words into Felix’s ears that the blood rushing in Felix’s ears makes impossible to hear, who noses his temple as he does so. The man who touches at Felix’s throat and feels his pulse and marvels in its beating, instead of craving to crush it in his fist.

They have done this before. They have gotten this far, and then one of them turned away. Sense of duty, sense of responsibility. Dimitri does so because he believes he is undeserving. Felix does so because he worries over promising something he cannot truly provide. Even if, in these moments, he thinks he might be enough.

But Felix is frozen tonight, and Dimitri is calm. And perhaps Dimitri is feeling confident from the night going so well, because his strength is not restrained, he does not touch Felix as though he is made of glass but as though he knows Felix is made of sterner stuff. He touches him, true.

Then, Dimitri kisses him. And Felix lets him.

It’s soft. A softness Felix still finds himself wanting to rebel against, and Dimitri likely knows this, Felix thinks, because he can feel Dimitri’s lips stretching into a smile against his own warm mouth. Bless Dimitri, however, because he does not comment. Instead Dimitri presses him against the wall, and Felix closes his eyes and allows himself to be reeled in by his king.

They break apart, and as the breath he’s been holding leaves him, Felix confesses, “I’ve wanted this.”

He cannot open his eyes to see how Dimitri handles those words. Even when he can feel Dimitri’s good eye boring into his skin at such an admission. Felix, for once, just wants to be pulled and maneuvered which ever way his tether wishes to bring him. For once he is yielding and pliant. For Dimitri, he gives himself over.

Dimitri must take that as a sign that he is waiting to be kissed again, and Felix does not mind the assumption. He gets even closer, the hand at his neck cupping his throat with more pressure, the other hand soothing his cheek. Dimitri leans in.

There’s more to this kiss, but it is still kind. Slow. Dimitri’s thumb is tracing along the hard bone of Felix’s jaw, and his mouth falls open, inviting Dimitri further. The sensation has his lips warming like a blooming bruise, Felix breathes in Dimitri’s steamed exhales. His insides feel like a hearth is housed in his chest, welcoming Dimitri home.

Felix cannot control himself. He reaches up to brace Dimitri’s arms, confirming him, letting him know this is everything that Felix has wanted. Everything he still wants.

This time, when they break apart, Dimitri rests his forehead against his. He is so _close_ , closer than Felix has ever let anyone get to him. His nose brushes against Felix’s, and his hands, his hands keep tracing Felix’s ears and his hairline, pulling threads of his hair back away from his face. Meanwhile, all Felix can do is just hold on.

“Felix,” Dimitri says. His voice is rough, but it is not the gruff intonation that sent Felix wanting to brandish his blade. It’s throaty and desirous, at the sound Felix feels groundless.

But he doesn’t want this to get too far before he knows Dimitri understands.

Felix opens his eyes. Faces cheek to cheek, Felix slides his arms up around Dimitri’s shoulders, but pulls back. This time, he is braver. He looks Dimitri in that blue eye that has already began to darken with doubt at what just happened, what is still happening, and says, “I’ve wanted this.” He places his palm on the side of his face, letting his fingers rest just above the eyepatch. “I want this.”

“Truly?”

Felix nods. He lets the tips of his fingers trace Dimitri’s eyebrow above his eyepatch in a question.

Dimitri stills. Eyebrows pinch together and his mouth clamps shut. Every muscle on him seems to tense up at the silent suggestion.

“You don’t have to.” Felix moves his hand back down, letting it rub down the nape of his neck to soothe him. “But I want you to know — it won’t scare me.”

“I haven’t known anything to scare you in some time,” Dimitri says, huff of a laugh.

It warms him that Dimitri thinks that, though Felix is not sure that’s true. How many of his goals are motivated by fear he cannot be sure, sometimes it feels like none. Sometimes it feels like all of them.

Felix doesn’t voice that though. Instead he combs his hands through Dimitri’s hair and smooths touches all over him to get him to relax. Dimitri’s gaze has shifted to Felix’s throat, downcast, thinking. “You don’t have to, Dima,” he reiterates, more sternly this time. “You don’t have to do anything.”

A light flickers on Dimitri’s face at that. His shoulders shake out, and for a moment he looks truly unburdened. As though no one has told him in some time that he has freedom, in some things. In this, most certainly.

Reaching up, he plucks the fabric of the eyepatch and pulls it off his eye.

It’s a wound, like many other they’ve had. Pink scarring surrounds the socket, and the socket itself is dark, but it is not as haunting as Felix imagined. It is gruesome and cruel and permanent, but it is like any other wound, even if it is slightly debilitating.

“I don’t have a reason to hide,” Dimitri says. With one hand, he furrows all the string all together into a ball and tucks it into Felix’s shirt pocket. Despite the seeming confidence in the action, Felix can feel the trembling in his body. A small smile on his face, sheepish, boyish. It has been a long time since Dimitri could ever be described as boyish, but there, against that wall, with the low light curling around Dimitri’s frame and his void of an eye, somehow, Felix is reminded of the boy he first fell in love with.

The lamps coil burns out behind Dimitri and they are cast in darkness. This startles Dimitri, even though he had his back to the lamp, but Felix distracts him. Puts his hand on Dimitri’s shoulder, cups the back of his neck, pulls him close.

Dimitri is warm, like he’s still wearing his cloak. Growing up in the winter winds of Faerghus has made their blood burn like fire, and Felix for the first time in a long time is glad for it. Glad that when he touches Dimitri, there is no doubt in his mind that he is very much alive. That his heart, too, has Dimitri’s incredible strength that Felix can feel over Dimitri’s chest as it beats a steady but hammering drum. His eye does not matter. Not when there are so many other parts to Dimitri that were at risk, that had been taken for a time.

This time, Felix initiates the kiss. Holds his face, and is careful not to touch the wound in case Dimitri responds poorly, but circles around it tenderly. Dimitri is still desirable. Dimitri is still alert and intelligent and a formidable force of nature; he is still soft and tender and expressive. An eye, in the scheme of things, is a small thing to lose.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I started a long fic with the goal of updating it every two weeks and two months later I am posting something entirely different, but, let's just say life gets in the way and this has been brewing for a while and I really wanted to get it out. This is my first fic less than 5,000 words, lol, never thought I'd ever manage that but here we are! 
> 
> I will eventually get back on top of that long fic though. I really enjoy writing Horse to Water, just need some more time. 
> 
> This is my first time writing these two, but I really like the side to Felix that I feel Dimitri can bring out just by being more... him again. I love writing feral Dimitri (it is a guilty pleasure of mine) but the redemption of Dimitri is just -- so good. 
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed. If you want to talk to me about Fire Emblem, I am on twitter @artesiaminor. Thank you for reading.


End file.
